Kanye jumped from room to room, moving on whenever he struck a creative wall with a song, booking out the complex's three session rooms 24 hours a day for an extended period of time. In Kanye's mind, a creative environment would also bring out the best in each artist, creating masterworks like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. As Kanye's colleagues report, he was so serious about the album that he made his colleagues dress up for the studio sessions in suits. He moved to Hawaii and invited a slew of other producers and performers to join him at Honolulu's Avex Recording Studios, including Rick Ross, Jay Z, Rihanna, Elton John, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, RZA, Q-Tip, and Madlib. West's response to the uproar that erupted in the aftermath of that incident was a period of self-imposed isolation from the spotlight. Those who predicted he wouldn't have a career were in for a rude awakening. Kanye was unfazed by the criticism, and he didn't let it get to him. His entire team would get up, eat breakfast together, go to the gym and play hoops together, and then begin their studio sessions at 4 p.m., which would last until 4 a.m. To make MBDTF, Kanye traveled with his crew to Hawaii. He did leave the country, but not to flee, but to create his greatest work of art. He was chastised by everyone, and Mos Def even advised him to leave the country. After topping the Billboard 200 chart a month ago with his fifth studio album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” which sold 496,000 copies its first week, according to Nielsen Soundscan, Kanye West has nothing short of disappeared selling 67,000 this past week.įollowing his “Today” show meltdown a few weeks ago, the rapper/producer made the decision to cancel all further interviews to promote the album.Kanye endured one of the most trying periods of his life following the Taylor disaster on the 2009 VMA stage, which left him emotionally raw after the break-up of his romance with model Amber Rose. One of his only public appearances since then was a performance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade where he was roundly booed. And now, after posting up to eight tweets a day on Twitter this past summer, Kanye West hasn’t made as much as a peep on a social networking site since Dec. 18.Īs a result, four weeks after his album was released, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” was the only non-second-week release in the top 20 to show a sales decline this week. All but 43 of the albums on the Billboard 200 chart saw an increase in sales thanks to consumers stocking up on Christmas gifts.
23.Ĭonsidering the album topped nearly every “Album of the Year” list, including Billboard’s, the recent numbers beg the question, what caused the sudden decline? Is it the lack of physical promotion and Twittering? Did the “Today” show debacle hurt his sales? Or was it the fact that Kanye himself released almost half of the songs off the album as leaks before the actual release that caused the disinterest? Of the seven, four are Christmas albums, which usually drop in sales around this time two are albums in their second week on the chart, so it’s natural to see a sophomore frame decrease and one is, you guessed it, Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” which moved down to No.Īnd in the top 50 only seven sets posted a decline, including West’s.
“I don’t think it has much to do with him leaking half the album before it hit stores,” says Carl Chery, Executive Music Editor for BET Digital. “If that was the case, I think his first week numbers would have been lower. The Matt Lauer and ‘Taylor didn’t defend me’ rant didn’t help. Welcome back!’ But shortly after that rant, he got booed at the Macys parade.”Įbro Darden, PD for New York radio station Hot 97, says that while “most albums naturally decline after the first week…we all can assume” this is occurring on such a huge scale for “Beautiful” because West isn’t doing much promotions lately. The leaking of the music leading up to the album’s release, Darden says, “is another good assumption” as to why his album sales are flagging. “It seems people invest their time in art based on their affinity to the person creating it, so maybe there was some overwhelming distaste for Kanye’s persona that resulted in people not investing in his art,” Darden says. If you look at other artists who are doing well now, they’re still in promo mode.
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